The Unique Character Of America And The American People

During the 18th Century America was dealing with independence from Europe and trying to establish them as a strong country. As far as government goes, a monarchal government was not in question. Many people saw great opportunity to step up and contribute ideas that will make America into the country of preference. One of these men was 3rd president and member of the original founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson. While most Americans view Thomas Jefferson as an upstanding and honorable man, he was plagued with the moral contradiction of having fathered children with one of his slaves Sally Heming’s and as a result spurred a great deal of controversy. As a result of his action’s Jefferson’s virtuous demeanor is questioned and shows how

Charles Murray’s American Exceptionalism invokes ideas I had not considered before. The way he describes America in its early life is unrecognizable to me. Murray discusses the geographic setting, American ideology, the traits of the American people, and the operation of the American political system. Now, centuries later than the time he described, it is like America had gone on a rapidly fast down torrent. I agree with Murray’s ideas of the exceptional traits America exuded, however, the traits I observe now, and as Murray talks about later on in the book, have taken on a different meaning. It is almost as if the once amazing concepts have been reduced to nearly half their worth. I am in no way stating America is no longer exceptional, but

Over the past few weeks of class, we have covered the first five chapters of our textbook, written by George Brown Tindell and David Emory Shi called, “America, A Narrative History.” Each chapter told the reader a narration of the history of America, as opposed to an expository version of America’s history. Each chapter had its own main idea over a portion of history, along with many details that cover the importance of the main idea. As a reader, one may obtain a deeper appreciation for the country 's history, prior to entering the class on the first day. The most important aspect of history, besides the battles that are fought, is the different cultures that make up today’s modern America.

During the early formation of our nation, many great authors were putting their thoughts and feelings down on paper. These early American writers were the foundation upon which the literary culture of America was founded. Among these are the early writings of John Smith, Anne Bradstreet and Thomas Jefferson. Their writings were completed during a time of exploration and colonization characterized by many historical political and cultural transitions, and their literature accurately describes the events of that period. The literary works of these important authors convey the hardships that they experienced in a new land, as well as the evolution of the government and culture.

America is a wonderful place to live, because we are free. Freedom is important, and many people in other countries do not have much freedom. I am glad I have a place like this to grow up in; where I know that I can be equal with other races and other genders. Also, I am glad I have a place like this that will respect me and I know it will be a great place to have my children grow up in.

Individualism and equality are two of America’s core values. These core values are the standards by which every American uses to distinguish what behavior are acceptable and what is not in the society in which we live in. It is these two values that our responsible for molding our personalities as well as our behaviors. I believe out of all the values the United States possess, individualism and equality are the two most important values to follow.

Throughout history society has to go through many changes that not only affect many of the people but also the areas around the transformation. The main point of Fredrick Jackson Turner’s thesis is what the real essence of America is, and how we’re all influenced by the many changes we have to go through. He believes that American history should not be focused on the extension of European enterprise. The society will have to realize that America will have to be emancipated because of the fact that we had a country with an unlimited amount of boundaries and have to come to realization that we have many closed-spaced limits. The views in the seminal essay share his thoughts on the idea of how the frontier shaped

The term American Experience refers to the idea of America as a place with endless possibilities and opportunities for everyone, especially in a religious sense emerging from the religious conflicts in Europe during the 1500s and 1600s. However, the term also includes the reality that the earliest settlers encountered, which did not always match their expectations. Early American literature written by Captain John Smith, William Bradford, Mary Rowlandson, and Benjamin Franklin present their personal American Experience. While the different authors offer perspective on a multitude of aspects of the American life, such as religion, dealing with the Natives, economy, and virtues, their conclusion is similar: America can be everything it promises,

History is the framework of every nation. It describes what life was like in a nation, hundreds perhaps thousands of years previously. With history, many citizens are able to examine what lead to a crisis in a nation such as the Stock Market Crash of 1929 or the Civil War in the 1800s in the United States of America. Likewise, the moments of growth and economic success are looked at. From these past endeavors, the people can examine what went wrong and what went right and determine how they can stop themselves from making similar mistakes or act in a way that has been proven to work. In Eve Kornfeld’s “Creating an American Culture 1775-1800,” many different areas of national identity are discussed, including the beginnings of documenting the history of America as an independent nation. This was especially hard for Americans to create a singular national identity because there was bias in the early works, the different colonies or states were extremely diverse, and many intellectuals had different perspectives on the American identity.

Upon reading and reviewing the text, I began to understand the Jeffersonian Era, and how it was different from the Early Republic Period. Also, why Jefferson was an important president during this era, and some of his problems. This highlights the troubles and triumphs the young country had as it began to shape its identity and place as a nation.

Billions of people all over the nation and world have heard of the ideal American vision to be defined as a perfect set of rules and regulations that provide the ideal conditions for living life. Though many people to this day may still argue their understanding of these idealistic views, there is an ideniable truth that it was two most influential figures in history from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Benjamin Franklin and John Winthrop, who helped shape this vision through their strong and very different opinionated perspectives. God’ role and form of government, social classes gradation, nature and moral laws, individualism or collectivism and virtues of success are all important aspects that have helped shape the American vision, in which also the opinions of Franklin and Winthrop stand divided between the leaders. Franklin emphasized the importance of the science and reason, which explains the structure of the world its affect of life on every nation. Winthrop presented his “a City on a hill” model, where everything depends on God’s will.” (The Puritan Vision Altered, John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”, 1630, pp. 6-7). Unlike Franklin’s democracy and liberty, he believed in state of brotherhood. However, Winthrop shares Franklins’ nature norms in relationship between people, but Winthrop also builds his vision

In the essay “What’s so great about America” by Dinesh D’Souza, the India born author shares his experience while living in America. D’Souza first starts his essay saying “Here is a country where everything works”(D’Souza 237-238), everything from the highway sign to properly working public toilets. He also emphasized how overwhelmed an immigrant can find themselves while visiting a supermarket for the first time. D’Souza then compares America to most countries today that does not have the most basic of health care products like deodorant which “is unavailable in much of the Third World”. New immigrants and people all over the world are witnessing the lifestyle of the poor in America living well, other

This essay will examine the rise of “modern America”, there were economic, religious, and aspect of life changes took place and it was greatly changed the Americans society’s perceptions, specifically, the north and the south. The rise of “modern America” was greatly motivated immigrants to come to the United States for economic opportunity, industrialization in the North after the civil war created new businesses and job regulations, and the demand for social changes; all of these factors shaped America socially, politically, and economically.

The definition of what America is, and furthermore what an American is, has been eternally elusive. However, it can be reasonably said that the vision of America rests upon freedom of expression, the right to property, and self-determination. These ideas are explored in one European’s examination of American agricultural society in the late 18th century. Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur illustrates the gilded nature of the early vision of America; one that appears to be simplistic and based in freedom, but lies on a foundation of oppression and greed.

1. Based on the readings from weeks one and two, discuss the images of America the European writers constructed to promote colonization and settlement. What kinds of unique natural resources and environmental factors did they extol in their accounts of the New World? Relate these images to natural resources and environmental factors today.